(Nearly) Rantless

I admit it: I was all geared up to deliver a rant today aimed at the Republicans and how we've given them four years to try to torpedo the President of the United States at the expense of the country they claim to love, and now would they please get down to work so the next four years aren't a massive waste of everybody's time?

But I'm just too damn worn out. The election is over at long last, and for the moment I'm simply out of bile. It will replenish itself, I'm sure. My bile is a totally renewable resource.

Just to be sure, I'll double up on my daily dose
of Bile Beans Laxative Plus.
That should keep me from waking liverish.

Instead, I'm just going to offer a few random facts and observations. Those are fun, right?

First of all, I was a little disappointed that I was the only person at my polling location who danced after voting yesterday. I even sang a little song that went "I got my vote on, I got my vote on." It was very cool, because there was a double line of people waiting for their turn, so it was a little like being in the dance line on "Soul Train." But nobody joined in.

Tsk. Voting is a joyous privilege, people. If participating in free elections isn't cause for breaking out in spontaneous awkward dancing, I don't know what is.

You've got four years to get some moves to bust.

Next: I got a job, bitches! Regular readers know that at the end of September I got laid off from my spectacular overpaid position doing nothing for a green technology company. It'll all be in the book. But starting Monday, I'll be doing actual work. Gulp. I don't know yet how the need to be productive will affect this blog. I have faith that I'll find a way to manage it. My ability to avoid work without being detected is honed to a razor's edge.

To be a tiny bit serious for a brief moment, I'm well aware that my six weeks of unemployment could just as easily have stretched into six months, as it has for so many people. I had the support and encouragement of an amazing network of friends and colleagues. They not only generously steered me toward opportunities but kept me from entering a state of wrist-slitting panic over what my brain insists on characterizing as the moral failure of losing my job. I'm overwhelmed with gratitude for that support, and for the kind words that came from Drunkards I've never even met. It's not a word I toss around lightly, but I feel blessed to have all of you in my life.

I'm stoked about becoming this person again.

Last thing: I wanted to let you know the reason I bugged out on the live-blogging event on my Facebook page last night before the election returns were all in. Here it is: the combination of large amounts of vodka and leftover candy corn created an existential chemical reaction, resulting in the creation of an alternate personality who decided to stage a coup on the part of me who isn't Chuck Baudelaire - and totally won. Then she started sending out private messages that weren't remotely related to the election and eating all the Fun-Size Milky Ways. Poor Chuck had to go into hiding.

Yeah, it was weird. That chick definitely drinks too much.

Anyway, that's all from here. I'm going to take the unemployment money I haven't spent yet and go shopping. Gotta keep that economy stimulated. The Prez needs all the help he can get.

Blasts from the Future

This week I've been in touch with two former employers. One is contracting me to write pieces just like the ones I used to write when I worked there a decade ago. There's no job offer coming with this, but it's a solid credit for my portfolio and a bit of cash to pad the bank account, and oh my gosh it's fun to be doing it again.



Never, ever burn bridges.
Unless they have trolls under them.

The other former employer reportedly would hire me tomorrow, but to do a job completely different from what I used to do for her. And that is scary scary scary. Because I'm intimately familiar with the position being offered. I worked closely with that position for years as a support person. And all the while I supported the folks doing that work, I thanked Jeebus that I wasn't them.

And lo, Jeebus did have my back.

Without going into a lot of details, it's a stressful job. Great opportunities for growth, very interesting work. And Piranhaconda-like in its ability to devour people and leave bits of them bleeding and twitching on the ground.

It's mutant-reptile-fish-eat-scantily-clad-woman out there.

Also, it would involve travel. Now, I've done my share of traveling for business. But it's pretty much been corporate-style travel. You know, fly in the night before, check into a nice hotel, spend the next day or two doing what you came to do, which mostly involves schmoozing with people dressed in business-casual clothes, have a couple of really great meals at the company's expense, and then fly home and share pictures of all the cool local stuff you saw and did on your off time.

This job isn't like that.



Boy, did he have it easy.

For the purposes of this job, travel means getting on a plane at 6:00 a.m., driving straight to your job site, interacting with a combination of laborers and government workers (equally indifferent to your needs), making sure everything you need to do gets done because a return visit is NOT in the budget, rushing back to the airport to catch the 6:00 p.m. flight, then getting to the office first thing the next morning to explain why your project is a disaster but it's not your fault.

Former colleagues who read this blog: Am I leaving anything out? Seriously?

I am beyond flattered that I've impressed my former boss as someone who can do this job, especially since I have zero experience beyond the years I spent being the professional who supported the professionals who did it. I know the industry, I know several of the people I'd be working with (it's a very incestuous industry that way), and I know that I'd be introduced gradually into the parts of the job I haven't actually experienced firsthand.

But I've been on the verge of a low-grade panic attack ever since I got the phone call.

Just for reference, my idea of
a low-grade panic attack.

Now, because this job is a) outside my field of expertise and b) initially likely to pay less than 90% of my most recent salary, the State of Texas says I can decline it without jeopardizing my unemployment benefits. I would love to take the easy route and hold out for a job that exactly matches my qualifications, pays great, and doesn't make me break out in a cold sweat at the thought of it. I just don't know if I'm cutting off my nose to spite my unemployed-ass face.

I do have the benefit of a bit of time. Former Employer #1 has given me some writing assignments that will take several days to complete. Prior commitments for the win, right? And I don't think the offer from Former Employer #2 will dry up if I don't accept it immediately. I have the incredible luxury of choice at this moment. Note to the Presidential candidates: If there's anything that defines a thriving nation, it's choice.

And not just of the "which dividend check will I cash today?" variety.

So I have a lot to think about. Once again: I am totally grateful to the wonderful people who have offered these opportunities. I'm luckier than so many Americans who lack not only jobs but options. You know who you are, and thank you. You've made my future seem brighter than it would seem otherwise, regardless of where I end up.

On the other hand, I could take my next unemployment check and invest it in lottery tickets. Because if I won, I'd be freaking set.

I'm not taking a single option off the table.

OK, So...

I thought I wasn't going to do a post today. I stuck a link to an old repeat on my Facebook page because I was in a deep funk and felt like putting my head in the washing machine while it was on spin cycle.

Other than the hairline, Van Gogh nailed it.

No particular reason. I've only been unemployed since Thursday afternoon; even by my standards of dramatic excess that's not enough time to work up a good existential crisis. So far I've sent out a dozen resumes and gotten one rejection. That, my friends, is an amazing hit rate. I need to wait until weeks have gone by and I've been rejected or ignored by scores of companies before I start to wonder if I'm ever going to work again. Hell, I'm actually still getting paid my actual salary - not severance - through tomorrow. Technically, I'm on vacation, albeit the kind I've been told not to return from.

My point is, I'm not freaked out over being unemployed yet.

My guess is, you'll know when it happens.

I'm not sure why I spiraled into this emotional morass sometime late yesterday. An amazing thing happened yesterday: I hit an all-time single-day high in pageviews. By a lot. Thanks, everyone who dropped in. Sincerely, truly, really, thanks.

It was still a pathetically small number of hits. Because I'm a pathetically small blogger. But it was awesome, just the same.

The thing is, yesterday was a rainy, chilly day in North Texas. There was sort of nowhere to go and nothing to do. As a result, I spent the day pretty much glued to my computer, watching my blog hits go up. It was cool to watch them rise, but by evening I realized what I had spent the last 10 hours doing and felt completely petty and lame. I know Perez Hilton doesn't sit around refreshing his stats all day. I had fallen beneath the benchmark of Perez Hilton, people.

And I started thinking about how this new record high was most likely a fluke. Which it was - today's hits were good for a Sunday, but certainly nowhere near yesterday's. So that made me feel pretty bad, too.

Also, I ran out of vodka and it occurred to me that it's pretty hard to justify the purchase of vodka when you're unemployed, unless you're a professional homeless alcoholic.

And finally, without going into too much detail, Beloved Spouse made a disparaging comment about my blog - that maybe he didn't mean or didn't think about disparaging it sounded or maybe I took it completely the wrong way - and it pretty much completed the launching of the spiral.

So the upshot is...I felt like a beached walrus, which as you may or not know rarely post blog entries. But then I felt better because I laughed a little and went grocery shopping at a different Target from the one I can no longer show my face in and filled out a couple of job applications. And I thought, well hell, now that I no longer want to put my leg in an industrial linen presser, why don't I at least get something out of it? Why don't I write about it, since that's what writers do?

By which I mean use their experiences to form the basis of their written expressions. Not whine all over the Internet. Hemingway never did that.

Although I'll bet Vincent Van Gogh would have been all over MS Paint making crazy pictures of bloody ears and shit and posting them on his Tumblr. Probably would have gotten a lot more hits than I do, too.

I should stop before I get in another funk.